“They understand a couple big things about this,” Brown said of Boxer and Kerry during a sit-down interview with The Hill. “They don’t get the votes from Midwestern industrial-state senators unless manufacturing is a major component of this.”

Brown is weighing all of that while answering questions in his office on the seventh floor of the Hart Building, which until last year was occupied by then-Sen. Obama (D-Ill.).

For starters, he thinks the Senate climate change bill needs to invest significantly more to help U.S. manufacturers, which face a competitive disadvantage with companies in China and other countries with less strict environmental rules.

Brown wants Boxer to increase the size of rebates to manufacturers that consume large amounts of energy, and give more assistance to small- and midsized manufacturers trying to retool their businesses to compete in the clean-energy economy.

“Carbon dioxide emissions expand if a company closes down in Toledo, Ohio, and moves to Shanghai, where the emissions standards are weaker,” he said. Brown describes this phenomenon as “carbon leakage.”

“His voice on manufacturing is really important,” said Stabenow of Brown.

Levin estimated the votes of six to 10 Democrats and “a few Republicans” could depend on what help is given to domestic manufacturers.

“A number of us that come from manufacturing states are determined that those states are going to be treated fairly,” said Levin. “We’ve got to bear this responsibility for the sake of the environment, but it’s got to be shared fairly. I agree with Sherrod Brown.”

Ten Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Obama in August urging that “clean-energy legislation not only address the crisis of climate change, but include strong provisions to ensure the strength and viability of domestic manufacturing.”

Several of those lawmakers said they were reviewing Boxer’s climate bill on Wednesday.

The climate debate presents a tricky problem for Brown, who won election to the Senate in 2006 by campaigning as a liberal populist. He is the most liberal senator from Ohio since the late Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who spent his career fighting what he viewed as the excesses of business.

While Brown is a solid supporter of labor unions, he has teamed up with the business community to protect the interests of manufacturing companies in the climate change debate. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) wrote a letter to Brown last week endorsing his proposal to set up a $30 billion Manufacturing Revolving Loan Fund to help small- and medium-sized businesses restructure their production lines for a new economic landscape.

But Brown says protecting manufacturers is a necessary step to protect workers.

“Climate change has to be substantively a jobs bill and has to be sold as a jobs bill,” said Brown.

Ohio is the quintessential presidential battleground state, and political experts say that Brown’s 2006 election was greatly helped by the growing unpopularity of former President George W. Bush as well as ethics scandals that rocked the Ohio Republican establishment.

Since winning election, Brown has tacked somewhat toward the center of the political spectrum, said Paul Beck, a political scientist at Ohio State University specializing in electoral politics.

“He’s had to represent the whole state, and he’s had a very visible presence in rural areas in small towns,” said Beck, who added: “Ohio is very middle-of-the-road.”

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While climate change legislation isn’t popular among many Republicans, Democrats from industrial parts of the state such as Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown are worried that new restrictions will add to the pressures on communities that have struggled mightily as manufacturing jobs have steadily eroded.

“Climate change is a tough issue for Ohio Democrats,” said Beck. “In his heart of hearts, Brown would want to be more supportive of the Democrats’ plans, but the electorate is holding him back.”

Brown acknowledges this, to an extent. He says that he primarily sees climate change as “a moral issue for the next number of generations, but my second-biggest interest is that it’s really about jobs and manufacturing — we can do it that way.”